


Nocturne

by chaoticrandomness



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gen, Murder Mystery, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4172151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/pseuds/chaoticrandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I write a CSI inspired murder-mystery that's also a rough genderbend of this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7217554/1/The-Number-Three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sardonic_pigeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sardonic_pigeon/gifts).



It was midnight when the silver-haired man slipped out of his bed with a knife and a notepad.

 

_She’s found them. I’m going to finally turn her in, and do what I should’ve done all those years ago…._

Silently, he made his way through the mazelike corridors of his sister’s house, a route he knew like the back of his hand. Ever since they’d moved here, he’d taken it upon himself to memorize every single twist and turn that led to the front door, and every single road that led to the police station.

_….turn left here…. walk another fifteen steps, and avoid the floor, it squeaks…._

He was right about to open the front door when every single light flicked on, zeroing in on him like spotlights.

 

_Oh god…. she’s found me…._

 

He was about to sprint for the door when a blade sliced open his neck. As he fell to the ground, he saw a tall woman with blonde hair standing over him, smiling like a maniac.

 

“.....brother…. you’ve betrayed me….” she whispered into his ear.

 

_No…. sister, you’re the one who’s betrayed us all…._

_Dimitri, I’m alive. She’s found Victoria and the others, and she’s coming for them…. please, hear me!_

“....I’m sorry….” he responded, before his body went limp and his eyes closed.

 

The last words of Nikolai Arlovskav were for his brother and a girl he loved. His sister thought they were for her.

 

* * *

 

 

Annaliese Edelstein; pianist, detective, and soon to be Annaliese Hedervary, found the body six hours later in a trash can near the park.

 

She’d woken up so early to get inspiration for a song she was going to write for her fiance, but all of the notes seemed banal and trite.

 

_He’d tell me that it’s amazing regardless of what I write him, but I want it to be perfect._

 

She had gone to the trash can to throw away her papers filled with fragments of sonatas. Except when she looked into the can, she saw a young man with sightless violet eyes staring at her.

 

_I cannot scream. I have to remain a bastion of ladylike perfection and professionalism._

Annaliese Edelstein desperately wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. Instead, she yanked her phone out of her bag, and called her fiance.

 

“Hello? Daniel, there’s a body stuffed in a trash can in the park near our office…. no, I didn’t see the killer and I’m not hurt, but just call everyone at the station, I’ll be there soon….” she said as she pulled out her camera and snapped photos of every single thing surrounding the can, before surrounding the area with yellow tape.

_I will remain calm and not faint._

_Think about music, Anneli. That helps you stay grounded._

* * *

 

Coroner Nguyen was the first person to see the body. He’d gotten a call from Detective Honda about one of her coworkers finding a body stuffed in a trash can the the park across the road from their office.

 

Immediately, he rushed to work, thoughts running through his head like demons.

 

_It’s strangely morbid…. and incredibly stupid. Out of every trashcan in Hearth, they go for the one right across the road from the police office._

_But they could be wanting to draw us out and target us. If we’re not safe, then who is?_

From what he could determine, the victim had died between six and seven hours before the body was recovered, was a male between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, and died due to being stabbed in the carotid artery.

 

_Yet the way Sakura told me the story, it made it seem like the victim had died recently before being found._

_Either we’ve got a stupid killer on our hands or one that wants to draw us all out. And either way, he’s a sadist._

The more he examined the body, the more cuts he could see. The victim’s back was a veritable maze of stab wounds, all made with the same knife that killed him, yet they were all inflicted postmortem. The eyes appeared to have been forced open, and were zeroed in on his, sightless purple meeting disturbed brown. The chest had even more postmortem stab wounds, and a bloodstained notepad was lying against it, the victim’s left hand tightly gripping it.

 

_I’ll have to bring this to forensics…. and there’s a knife in his other hand. Certainly served him well….._

“....the knife used by his killer appears to be of the same model as the one he held in his hand, and…. judging from his slenderness and height, it’d be likely for him to be mistaken for even younger than his apparent age….” his assistant said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

_When did she get here?!_

 

He had no idea how Anais Zwingli could slip into nearly any room like a gust of wind, or why she’d even brought up the victim being mistaken for a young teenager.

_….doesn’t she have a brother that age? She wants to keep him safe, and doesn’t want him to be targeted…._

Coroner Nguyen was about to bring up a point, when a scream blew all his thoughts to bits.

 

“Anais, are you alright?!” he exclaimed, rushing over towards her and almost embracing her.

 

“Yes, I’m fine. Were you going to say something?” she answered, staring at him like he’d just grown a second head.

 

_Am I hearing screams? Is this corpse going to be the one that drives me off the deep end?_

“Since the two knives are the same model, it’s either a common brand of knife or he knew his killer in some manner. I want you to see what you can find out about the knives, and I’m going to drop off something for the rest of our department.” he said, trying to both delicately and rapidly extract the bloodstained notepad from the corpse’s left hand without ripping it.

 

The second the notepad was in his hands, Coroner Nguyen ran out the door, hoping to free his mind from dreaming up the type of man who would inflict such brutality on another human being.

 

_Was the scream mine? Am I the one trapped in a paranoic maze?_

* * *

 

Dimitri Chernenko, newly hired assistant criminal psychologist, was woken up from a dream of arson by a call about murder.

 

_….so, out of the frying pan into the fire…. as long as Evelin’s not worried about me, everything’s fine._

Unfortunately, he had no idea where anything was, and there were no signs in the building, so he was forced to follow the first person he saw in the hopes of finding the right office.

_….okay, she’s carrying a gun, so she’s probably one of the officers, and Detective Edelstein’s office is probably near hers?_

The gun-wielding blonde led him through a maze of hallways and staircases, before finally opening one of the doors in the basement.

 

_….did the person who built this design my sister’s old house? Well, at least the basement is fireproof…._

_Nikolai, why didn’t you remember that?!_

He was about to follow her into the room, before noticing the tall dark-haired man standing over a corpse.

 

_Great, I followed the morgue assistant. I’ll just ask her…._

From his spot right outside the door, he could see that corpse appeared to be silver-haired….

_It’s probably someone who’s died their hair silver. Or an old person…. they haven’t found my brother’s corpse, it disappeared in the rubble of a burned house five years ago…._

_I dreamed of his screams and my sister’s laughs, her laughs as she lit the house ablaze….._

_Was she too far gone back then to realize that she’d kill everyone not in the basement? Did she actually think that she’d survive as her siblings burned?!_

He wanted to run back up the stairs and find Detective Edelstein’s office, but he was frozen in place as the world burned around him, burning everything and everyone on the upper floors with the force of a thousand suns…..

 

_I can’t run, I have to stay here and protect them._

But his brother was wrong, the basement was flammable and everything was burning around him as a scream escaped from his lips, shattering the illusion.

 

_Great, they’re all staring at me…. so they think I’m emotionally unstable._

_I am genetically predisposed to be emotionally unstable._

Dimitri Chernenko ran out of the doorway, yanking open doors at random before collapsing in an empty closet.

 

* * *

 

Madeline Williams was roused from her boredom by a series of calm knocks on the door of the forensics laboratory.

 

_Amelia, they’ve got more evidence for you to analyze. And I’m a ghost._

She calmly walked towards the door and opened it, unmasking a tall and serious looking Asian man holding a plastic bag containing a bloodstained notepad.

 

“....I forgot to drop this off with the DNA and the knife earlier. Are you the only person here not doing anything?” Coroner Nguyen asked, handing her the bag.

 

_FInally! I’m not that invisible girl in the shadow of her family who someone sat on on a bus once._

“Yes! I’ll make sure everything’s found out from this that you want!” she blurted out with a massive smile on her face.

 

_Great, I sound like Amelia and he thinks I’m an idiot._

Before the coroner could comment on her strange behavior, she sprinted back into her section of the laboratory, her face growing redder by the second.

_Okay…. if it’s possible to run the blood through a toxicology scan, do that, as well as electrophoresis and see if there’s a match in CODIS…. and a notepads has fingerprints and writing on it, so check for those…._

_Hey, there’s something vaguely legible on the notepad. Although I don’t see how an entry from five years ago with the sentence ‘by the grace of divine providence, we are alive.’ is going to help us. Maybe he’s a religious nut._

_Why exactly am I making light of someone who was stabbed at least fifty times, though?_

Madeline Williams placed the book on top of the light table, snapped on a pair of gloves, and opened up the fingerprint and CODIS databases on her computer. This was her first actual assignment in who knows how long, and she was going to be perfect.

 

* * *

 

On the next floor up, Daniel Hedervary wanted to smash his head against a wall. Anneli had found a body in a trash can, called him, and told him to go call everyone else and get them to the office.

 

He wanted to go hunt down the killer himself and empty every single round of a fully-loaded gun into that idiot’s brains, but Anneli had told him that everything was fine and she sounded perfectly normal, so he calmly quashed his desire for revenge and called everyone whose phone numbers he could remember.

 

However, it’d been at least three hours, and all anyone’d found were DNA samples of dead people.

_Either forensics is screwing everything up, or this guy is a genius. What better way to cloud our vision that plant fake DNA on his victims and weapons? It’s one thing to wear gloves, and another to use DNA that’ll frame someone…._

_Although, they did fuck up on the DNA framing bit, for they used DNA from a dead person…._

He took another look at the photos Anneli had taken of the area surrounding the trash can, in the hopes that a fifth or sixth glace would unmask something that’d serve as the final nail in the killer’s coffin, but nothing new came up sans a pervasive desire to storm out the door and figure out why the heck Feliciana and Monika’s investigation was taking so long.

 

_They’re right across the road from the office! Unless…. the killer’s been there the whole time, somehow missed Anneli, yet….._

Fear rose in his veins as he sprung out of his chair and began to sprint out of his office, only to run straight into Julchen Beilschmidt.

 

“For a minute, I thought I was on the receiving end of your infamous frying pan. Still paranoid about Anneli?” she quipped, tossing her silver hair out of her face as they walked back into his office.

 

“The reports of that pan are greatly exaggerated, and if I’m ever not concerned for Anneli’s safety, go assume that I’ve been replaced with an impostor. Where the hell is everyone else?” he answered.

 

_If your response is ‘stuffed into trash cans’, I’m going to-_

Suddenly, the phone rang.

 

“Um, I’m Xiaochun Wong, and I’m calling to report a murder in the alleyway between Schaan Avenue and Triesenberg Place….” the voice on the other end said as he picked up the phone.

 

_Was the body stuffed into a trash can?! Who was it?!_

 

_It’s not Anneli or Feliciana or Monika. It’s a completely different person on a completely different case, and you didn’t fail at protecting anyone._

 

Daniel Hedervary slammed the phone back onto its jack and ran towards the nearest police car, driving to the crime scene like a madman.

 

_Anneli’s currently showing her new assistant around here and analyzing the character of the killer. She’s not stuffed in a trash can in an alleyway….._

_Right?_

 

 


	2. Elegy

Noah Zwingli had just bought a bouquet of flowers for his girlfriend, and was heading to her apartment to ask her out on a date.

 

_Pink roses, for love and gratitude. Yellow roses, for friendship. Daisies, for happiness. Lilies of the valley, for perpetual kindness._

_Rasia, I hope you’ll find it beautiful._

 

He was about three blocks from the florist when he noticed a tall blonde woman in pink walking a few paces behind him. Impulsively, he turned around, only for the woman to pull a phone out of her pocket and stare at it.

 

_It’s probably my sister wearing that pink jacket I bought her on April Fool’s Day. At least she’s not carrying her gun…._

_Anais, I’m not going to get murdered every time I go anywhere by myself!_

He quickly turned around and continued on his way to his girlfriend’s apartment, only to trip over a gap in the sidewalk.

 

_Oh, they’re doing construction on this part of it. Maybe I should’ve gone another way? At least the flowers are okay….._

He was about to extract himself from the ground, when he felt a sharp blow to his head.

 

_….what?! I’m not being attacked in public, that’s completely irrational when it’s daytime and we’re in the middle of the road…._

Noah Zwingli wanted to scream and alert someone to what was going on, but all he could feel were sharp bursts of pain in his chest and back, his awareness lowering with every stab.

 

_I know how to use a gun and I’ve heard that stabbing someone with a lily of the valley stops their heart, but I’m completely powerless against this maniac….._

_Anais..... you’re right. I shouldn’t have gone out on my own today…._

To any random passerby, the tall blonde woman and the short boy in her arms walking into the alleyway looked like a mother and her son.

 

Not a killer and her second victim.

 

* * *

 

Xiaochun Wong found the body completely by accident. He’d woken up with a random impulse to jog through the streets of Hearth, and both his sister and girlfriend had told him that he needed an outlet for his seemingly-boundless energy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very well-versed in the geography of his hometown, and kept ending up running through random alleyways.

 

He was about to declare his jogging session a complete wash and call his girlfriend to pick him up after the tenth or twelfth wrong turn, when he noticed something that looked like a foot sticking out from under a box.

 

_Someone’s trapped beneath a box, and I need to save them. Or maybe they’re a homeless person, and I have to help them._

“Hello? Are you alright?” he asked, lifting up the boxes and unmasking a diminutive boy with blonde hair surrounded by a variety of flowers. There was no response, so he grabbed the boy’s hand.

 

That was when he noticed how cold the hand was and the bloodstains on the boy’s chest.

_WHAT?!_

“HELP ME!” he screamed, releasing his grip on the boy and beginning to run out of the alleyway, stopping in between a pair of street signs.

_You just alerted the killer to your presence, you idiot! Besides, you’ve also fucked up the crime scene, which Sakura keeps harping on about not having anyone do, and-_

_I’m going to call her right now._

“Hello? I know you don’t want me to call you when you’re on duty, but there’s a body at the intersection of Schaan Avenue and Triesenberg Place….”

 

* * *

 

Sakura Honda had spent the past two hours being yelled at by a park ranger when her adoptive brother called her.

 

Slightly after six, she’d received a call about a body found in a trash can. She proceeded to call several more people in the department, before rushing off to the office. The head of their department had assigned her, Detective Vargas, and the younger Detective Beilschmidt to investigate the park before it opened, and their first hour of investigation was completely ordinary.

 

_The other two seem like really close friends, although I suppose I would’ve been closer if I was less shy._

They were about to report back to the station when a very angry-looking park ranger stormed towards them and began to berate them for trespassing, breaking part regulations, and vandalism.

 

“....we’re here to investigate a murder, and the caution tape was put up by Detective Edelstein when she found the body earlier this morning?” Detective Beilschmidt had answered while attempting to restrain her friend from punching the ranger in the face.

 

“Well, shouldn’t the fucking police department be smart enough to know the park’s hours?!” the ranger responded.

 

“You know, if you’re impeding us from investigating, you sound really skeevy. Where exactly were you at midnight? Also, Anneli is one of the smartest people I know, unlike you….” Detective Vargas quipped, before the ranger dragged the three of them into his office and kept ranting about Hearth turning into a dictatorial police state due to its acceptance of transculturation and mass immigration.

_I’m not a violent person, but I would like for Detective Vargas to punch you._

When her phone rang, she instantly yanked it out of her pocket, thankful for a reprieve from inane ranting. For once, she was glad that her brother’d called her.

 

That all changed when he told her that he’d found a body.

 

Sakura Honda instantly sprinted out of the office, dragging her partners with her as she ran towards the scene of the crime.

_We’re tracking a serial killer, and we must prevent him from killing anyone else._

* * *

 

Anais Zwingli was in the middle of extracting every bit of information that she could from a knife when her phone rang.

 

_….so, this type of knife is designed for acuity when being thrown, and tends to come in sets. In addition, there appear to be multiple sets of fingerprints on this knife, which point to either a scuffle or the knife being used by multiple people._

“.....Anais, was your brother planning on going anywhere today? Is there anyone who he’d want to meet?” the phone asked, turning her veins to ice.

_He’s not dead! Calm down, he’s probably visiting that girl he keeps talking about._

“Does the girl who he wants to date count? Her name’s…. ah, Rasia Galante? I think?” she answered, and was met with a chorus of murmurs and whispers.

 

_Listen, absolutely no serial killer is stupid enough to kill someone in broad daylight, as the last time I saw him was this morning._

“....um, is she the one who’s my neighbor’s semi-adoptive younger sister? Feliciana and Monika are going to interview her after we finish up with the guy who found him….” the phone rambled as her superior walked into the room.

 

_I’m not going to throw this knife at you, or act out my revenge-fantasies on anyone. Besides, there’s always a chance that this is either a red-herring or a prank._

“Have you finished your investigation of the supposed second victim?” she asked, trying to eject her brother’s corpse from her thoughts.

 

“....Anais, do you want to go home?” he answered.

_Am I really being that obvious about my feelings?_

“No, I’m fine. I’d just like to examine them on my own, if you don’t mind.” she said, as he led her into the morgue, where she was greeted by a body with a sheet over it.

 

_This could be literally anyone. Noah is perfectly safe right now._

“....the cause of death is identical to that of the first victim, however, this victim was also rendered mostly unconscious due to a blow to the back of their head and was stabbed multiple times before dying.” Coroner Nguyen informed her, as she yanked the sheet off of the body.

_He looks…. so…. calm…._

 

Anais Zwingli wanted to cry after unmasking her brother’s body in the morgue, but she couldn’t.

 

* * *

 

In the apartment next to Rasia Galante’s, Felicia Lukasiewicz was making tea for her girlfriend.

 

_Victoria’s always been headache-prone, but it’s kind of weird that she hasn’t gotten out of bed or acted like she’s fine…. she must be really sick, then._

The kettle had reached its boiling point when she heard a series of knocks on the door.

 

_Are you trying to break down my door with a miniature battering-ram?_

“There’s a person having migraines in here, so stop abusing the door!” she exclaimed, wrenching it open and unmasking someone wearing all black and a gasmask.

 

“If you’re trying to rob me, then you’ve got to be one of the stupidest criminals alive! I’m a trained fencer, and-” she began, before a knife flew in out of nowhere and pierced her carotid artery.

 

_Victoria, CALL THE POLICE! THERE’S A CRAZY PERSON IN A GASMASK IN HERE!_

The woman in the gasmask calmly walked by the corpse that was pinned to the stove, and headed for the bedroom.

 

She was finally going to reunite with the person she loved.

 

* * *

 

While all this was going on, Detective Feliciana Vargas and her partner were on their way to interview Rasia Galante.

 

“....so, Daniel and Annaliese’s is on the far right, and the one in the middle is where we’re going.” she quipped, dragging Monika to a door with the number 218 on its front.

_So, we’re chasing someone who’s willing to stab a teenager over 50 times…. but we’re going to find him._

 

_We’ll make sure that no one else dies, and everything’s going to be okay._

“Hello! Is there a Rasia Galante here?” she exclaimed, her voice surprisingly cheerful as she knocked on the door three times. Instantly, a blonde woman with long hair and glasses opened it, carrying a stack of papers.

 

“....could you please tell me why you need my younger sister?” the woman asked, staring at something on the paper.

 

_Don’t worry! We’re not scary!_

“We’re investigating a serial killer, and we need to question your sister. What’s your name, by the way? I-” she began, before her partner grabbed her and dragged her into the apartment.

 

_Monika, I know you don’t want me to tell my entire life story to people we interview, but it’s a humanizing tactic._

_People are more willing to tell us stuff if they think we’re human._

“....I’m Evelin Von Bock, and could I stay with my sister when you question her? She’s incredibly prone to panic attacks when questioned by figures she perceives as authority, and tends to confess to anything she’s being accused of regardless of her actual guilt.” the woman answered, leading the two of them to a sofa before exiting the room.

 

“....do you feel like she’s trying to cover-up for her sister’s guilt, Feliciana?” her partner whispered in her ear right after Evelin left the room.

 

_No, I think she actually does have a sister with panic issues. You need to stop acting like everyone’s hiding stuff, Monika. We’re not surrounded by sinners and evil people._

“....Rasia, the people on our sofa are here to interview you about a serial killer in Hearth. They’re not going to accuse you of anything, so don’t worry.” Evelin said as she returned with her sister.

 

_Monika, this is not our killer. She looks like a doll, for god’s sake!_

* * *

 

Until Rasia Galante entered the room with her older sister, Detective Monika Beilschmidt was fully prepared to arrest the pair of them for committing two murders and being an accomplice to said pair of murders.

 

_Why else would Evelin tell us that her sister would confess to anything she was accused of?_

However, when their interviewee was revealed to be a diminutive girl with wavy blonde hair who was wearing a red dress and staring at the floor, her suspicions were smashed to bits.

_….does she even have the arm strength to move the body, or even stab him that many times?_

“Miss Galante, did you know anyone named Noah Zwingli?” she asked, folding her hands in her lap.

 

“....um, I, um…. yes, he’s, um… a friend of mine….” the interviewee answered, her face turning red.

 

_Am I putting too much pressure on her?_

_Just get through the questions as quickly as possible…. the sooner you get through this, the less time the killer has to kill anyone else._

“Can you tell me about him? What were his hobbies? Did he have any enemies?” she asked, the questions flying out of her mouth as her partner glared at her.

 

_Feliciana, we need to finish this interview as soon as possible. The more time we’re here, the more likely it is for someone else to die._

“....um, he…. um…. read a lot, and would talk to me about my art and writing…. he’s also the nicest person I know…. um, and no one would ever want to hurt him….” Rasia answered, staring into space.

 

_Why would he be targeted then? Does the killer just wantonly target random men?_

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but you’re here because Noah Zwingli is dead?” Evelin asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. She was about to answer her when a scream cut her off.

 

“....I’m sorry! I did it, didn’t I?! She wanted me to be with him, didn’t she?! She’s alive, and wants me again, so I shouldn’t talk to people or even interact with them, for she’s going to kill them and no one actually wants to talk to me anyways, so I did it after all, and…. oh god, I’m sorry….”

 

_I can’t stand to see children crying._

“....don’t worry, it’s not your fault. We’re going to find his killer, and bring him to justice.” she said, impulsively embracing Rasia Galante as her partner looked at her like she’d gone insane.

 

_I am capable of expressing emotions, Feliciana. I just prefer not to do so when dealing with murder…._

“....don’t hurt me again…. I won’t let you hurt me again….” the girl in her arms said, before her body went limp and she fell to the floor, like a puppet being cut of its strings….

 

_What?! What did I do wrong?! Did I hurt her?!_

“Is she okay?! Do you have any medical supplies here?!” her partner exclaimed, as Evelin began to move her sister onto the sofa.

 

“....yes, she’s fine…. I probably should’ve told you this earlier, but she’s incredibly apt to respond negatively when touched by people she doesn’t know due to something that happened when she was younger, and it’d be easier for her to recover if our older sister was here with us?” she answered, walking towards a nearby door.

 

_Forgive me if I’m intruding, but why aren’t your parents involved in this at all?_

“Yes, you can bring her in. What’s her name?” her partner cheerfully asked.

 

_We’re in the middle of an interview and our witness just collapsed. This is not a good time to talk about your life, Feliciana._

“....her name’s Victoria Laurinaitis, and she lives next door.” Evelin answered, walking through the door and rendering the room completely silent.

 

_If she’s your sister, why don’t you have the same last name? Why do none of you three share last names, where are your parents in this mess, what happened to Rasia Galante which’d cause her to have such an aversion to physical touch, why does Evelin Von Bock attempt to preemptively prevent conflict from breaking out, how old are you, and who was Rasia referring to in her outburst?_

_Also, what’s taking you so long to get Victoria Laurinaitis?_

 

Monika Beilschmidt was about to storm through the door or revive her interviewee on her own, when she was informed of the serial killer’s third and fourth victims being in the apartment next door.

 

* * *

 

_CODIS MATCH-Anastasia Braginskaya._

_Oh god, not this again._

 

Amelia Fitzgerald Jones desperately wanted to throw her electrophoresis equipment out the window, for it kept giving her results for a pair of Russians who died five years ago in a house fire.

 

_To think that I was glad that there actually were multiple sets of DNA on the victim…. expect they all point to dead people._

Unfortunately, fingerprint analysis yielded the exact same results, and those were the only types of physical evidence she could find.

_There’s something else, I know that I have to be forgetting something stupid, but…. what’s left?_

_I’ll go ask my sister. She’ll be able to help me._

 

“Maddie?! Have you only been getting results for dead people?!” she exclaimed, hoping that her sister would hear her.

 

_….people say that I’m a sort of heroine with what I do, but my sister’s…._

“....I’m running an analysis of the mtDNA. Yes, I did get only dead people from CODIS, but considering that the corpses were never recovered from the fire, there’s always the chance that one of their siblings had them for five years and used their DNA to frame them?” her sister answered.

_You know, when they don’t find the body after your house goes in flames, that’s because they’re not actually dead. Then again, I’m normally the one with the crazy theories, so…._

 

“ ….I have a match, I think.” her sister said.

_Finally! We’ve got the killer!_

Amelia Fitzgerald Jones ran over towards her sister’s side of the laboratory, where a screen displayed the results of her sister’s mtDNA analysis.

 

_MATCH-Dimitri Chernenko, M, Employee of Hearth Police Department._

 

 


	3. Cadenza

Apart from finding her newly-hired assistant collapsed in a closet in the basement, Annaliese Edelstein’s day at work had gone by rather normally.

 

_Then again, accidentally ending up in the morgue and coming face-to-face with the corpse of someone who’s been treated so brutally would cause anyone to react that way on their first day…._

 

After extracting him from the closet and leading him towards her office, they’d come to the conclusion that it was extremely likely for another body to turn up, for the sheer brutality of the postmortem stabbings tended to be emblematic of sadists.

 

_However, most of them don’t start by killing people, so shouldn’t we have a record of their smaller crimes?_

Then again, they could’ve just dumped the body and this case on a random town…. and why does Dimitri keep bringing up arson and robbery and kidnapping? Why do I feel like he knows more about this mess than he claims to?

 

_He’s your fiance’s neighbor and friend from college. Why would Daniel…. except most people don’t realize that they’ve met a psychopath until after said person gets arrested._

_And I need to repay him._

 

Annaliese Edelstein was about to interrogate her assistant when a woman with blonde hair burst into the office.

 

_….and…. wait, who’s standing behind Amelia?_

“Is there another victim?” she asked, staring at the floor.

 

“Yes…. his name’s Noah Zwingli, but we’ve found the killer!” Amelia exclaimed, dramatically punching her fist into the air.

 

_What?! Anais’ brother…. why would anyone hurt him?! From what I know of him, he’s probably the sweetest kid I know…._

_He used to want me to write music for him and Anais…. oh god, I can’t-_

“....my sister’s jumping to conclusions, but your assistant doesn’t happen to have a younger brother and sister who were pulled over for a DUI seven years ago and died in a house fire five years ago that his brother set?” a pale-looking blonde that looked like a clone of Amelia asked as she turned towards Dimitri.

 

_….who are you? How do you know all this…. at least this explains why he keeps bringing up arson, if his brother was one we never caught…._

“....no, he didn’t set the fire…. my sister did….” he answered, his voice growing softer and softer.

_Is she also the reason why he keeps bringing up kidnapping and robbery? Does he suspect that one of them’s the person we’re chasing?_

“Anyways, we’re suspecting him due to a mtDNA match, so are you going to let my sister interview him? She’s really excited to be actually doing something….” Amelia asked, breaking the room’s silence.

_When did we hire your sister?_

Before Annaliese Edelstein could answer, Amelia’s sister had left the office with Dimitri Chernenko.

 

* * *

 

_She’s been alive since the fire began, and set it to fake her death._

Felicia Lukasiewicz’s body was pinned to the stove with a knife when Evelin Von Bock walked into her sister’s apartment. Her sister was lying in bed, her body a veritable maze of knife wounds….

 

_How long has she been tracking us? If she knows about Noah and Felicia…. so they’re just obstacles in her path to reclaim her dolls._

_She wouldn’t kill her own brother, would she?_

 

“Who are the victims?! Did you see the killer?! Are you alright?!” the brunette policewoman exclaimed, sprinting towards her and attempting to examine her body for wounds.

 

_Don’t find them. I don’t want you to destroy evidence…._

“....yes, I’m fine, but my older sister’s really heavily injured and her girlfriend’s dead….” she answered, as the blonde policewoman walked into her sister’s apartment with Rasia.

_I know who the killer is. I have to tell the police…. and I don’t care if she kills me._

“Do you have a first aid kid in your apartment? Feliciana, go call Julchen or Sakura or Daniel and tell them that there’s a third body, and that the killer doesn’t exclusively target men…” she asked.

 

_So…. wait, who was the first victim? Logically, it’s…. oh god…._

_It’s not Dimitri. You saw him this morning, for one thing. Except that doesn’t rule out her being crazy enough to kill her brother….. and enough time passed between then and now…._

 

“Monika, wouldn’t it be easier for us to save Victoria first, so no one else dies?” Feliciana asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.

 

“....I think that it would be best to help both of my sisters first. The first aid kit’s in Victoria’s bedroom….” she answered, leading the policewomen to her sister’s bedroom, hoping that she was still alive….

 

_Tell them who the killer is! You know everything, but they’ll never find out the truth if you don’t tell them now…._

“....I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, but I believe that the killer is named Anya Braginskaya….” Evelin Von Bock declared, as the police began bandaging her sister’s injuries.

 

_You have no power over me. I will not let you control me._

 

* * *

 

_Yes, this is proper way to help the police. By breaking into one of the detectives’ apartments._

Helena Kirkland was highly tempted to punch herself in the face as her boyfriend walked through the door of apartment 2-18, which he was convinced was the residence of Daniel Hedervary and Annaliese Edelstein.

 

“Why are you so sure that they keep evidence in their home, Xiaochun?” she asked, following him into an average-sized living room with a kitchen next to it.

 

“It just felt like the right thing to do, and I wanted to help them find the person killed that boy….” he answered, opening several cabinets under the sink.

 

_Why would Dectective Hedervary store evidence in the same place as his cleaning supplies?_

“Unless the Hearth Police Department was stupid enough to hire a serial killer, there’s most likely nothing in here.” she said, beginning to walk towards the exit.

 

“The last place anyone would…. examine would be the detective’s house, wouldn’t it? Helena, could you check what’s behind the door over there?” he asked, gesturing at a door behind her.

 

_I’m pretty sure they’d both notice that something weird’s in their apartment if they both work for law enforcement._

“Fine, I’ll check there, and then we’ll leave and make sure not to get arrested.” she answered, opening the door and unmasking a bedroom with a pair of beds in it.

 

_So, they sleep in separate beds. Either this is a very happy coupling or a very negative one._

There was a small box under the larger bed, which both looked like and probably was a shoebox.

 

_I’ll just get this, look at shoes for ten seconds, and tell him that this is really stupid._

Helena Kirkland crawled under the bed, grabbed the shoebox, and pulled the lid off, expecting to unmask a pair of shoes. Instead, the box was filled with newspaper articles and photos of kidnapped girls.

 

_What?! I don’t think we broke into the right house, Xiaochun…. I think this guy’s probably a criminal._

“You’re right, we found something. However, I think we accidentally broke into the house of a child kidnapper.” she said as she ran out of the bedroom with the shoebox filled with evidence, almost spilling it all on her boyfriend.

 

* * *

 

Victoria Laurinaitis opened her eyes to a strange feeling of lightness. Somewhere near her, she could see a group of people taking notes on something….

 

“....she’s guilty of most likely three murders, along with arson, kidnapping, assault….” someone that sounded like her younger sister rambled.

 

_“Betray me in any way, and I’ll kill you.”_

_She’s here. I don’t know where she’s hiding, but she’s somewhere in this building…._

She wanted to tell her that Anya had never died, and had been tracking them for at least a year, but the words kept getting stuck in her throat….

 

_Listen to me! Don’t say anything else, for she can hear everything!_

“....no, I want you to hear all this as soon as possible and not risk my sisters’ health worsening. Let’s stay here.” her sister remarked, as someone removed their phone from the bag and began to record.

 

_Evelin, what on earth are you telling them?! That she killed Felicia? That’s all she did, and not-_

“I don’t know if you have a rash of unsolved arson cases, but that’s how I met her. She burned my house down, kidnapped me, and then…. started indoctrinating me into being some sort of creepy doll…. trust me on this, it’s the first thing I truly remember.”

 

_And that’s all that happened! Don’t say anything else, for she’s going to kill you if you do…. and it should be me saying all this, I should be the one telling law enforcement everything…._

“.....she…. stopped paying attention to me after a while, and then Rasia showed up…. and then everything went to hell, if you can describe hell getting more hellish….”

 

_No, don’t bring anyone else into this! Evelin, you think you’re bringing her to justice, but you’re just condemning yourself to a slow and painful death…._

_Talk about me. Trust me, they can build an entire case off of me, and you won’t kill yourself._

“....I wanted to protect her and Victoria wanted to protect her after…. nevermind, that’s not important, but I couldn’t save her from being indoctrinated…. and then her brother found out and everything got better and worse at the same time, and then her other brother found out…. and then she set the house on fire.”

 

_After I let her break you! I wanted you to be that idealistic girl again, not an emotionless wall!_

“....I could tell you millions of things she did that’d cause you to arrest her. Just because she never really did anything to me after a while doesn’t mean that I was oblivious to what was going on…. on the contrary, I was her perpetual witness to everything she did to everyone else. And maybe that was how she abused me.”

_Evelin, hear my thoughts. Please. Talk about me, because I’m going to be the only person who dies._

_Anya is in this building. She knows that you are here with the police, and is going to kill you if you talk about yourself. I don’t want you to die….._

“....she used to imprison me in her basement, you know? I’d be there, and she’d be doing something in the next room, and I’d hear everything she was doing, except I couldn’t escape the room or break out in any way…. and if  I did, she was…. somehow aware of what I was doing…. um, think of it like one of those escape the room videogames, except you get beaten if you get out of the room by your kidnapper?” her sister finished, almost collapsing to the floor.

 

_….oh god…. did I ever tell her that I’d let her kill me in exchange for freeing you two? I really should’ve done so…._

__  
  


“.....that’s enough. It’s very brave of you to tell us all this.” someone said, terminating the recordings.

 

_Yes…. and I should come forwards as well, shouldn’t I? To show that I’m still human._

She was about to finally talk about what happened to her all those years ago when someone dropped a shovel in the other room.

_….Anya’s been there the whole time, and she’s luring the police out…._

The police were right that their suspect was the one who dropped the shovel. They were completely wrong on their suspect’s motives for dropping said shovel, and thought they could catch the criminal in a moment of distraction.

 

The last thing Victoria Laurinaitis saw before she blacked out for the second time was a woman smiling like a madman and proclaiming her joy at their reunion.

 

* * *

 

_It is quite strange, reading the diary of a sympathetic arsonist._

Madeline Williams was quite surprised that both her interviewee and his superior were convinced into letting her interrupt their work and attempt to find a suspect, but the positive mtDNA result probably played a role in it.

 

_Or maybe it was because I brought Amelia with me. She could probably convince the entire office to stop investigating this killer and throw a party for no reason._

She wasn’t sure why he was fully convinced that his sister set the fire instead of his brother, but he probably had no idea that his younger brother even kept a journal and said journal’s entries didn’t seem to be the most favorable towards his sister.

 

_He writes the words “I am becoming like her. I can’t let this happen.” quite often…._

“....I’m sorry if this is odd, but I believe the first victim of this killer is your younger brother, and that this bloodstained notepad is his journal.” she said as he collapsed into a chair.

 

“....it looked like him, but he’s been dead for five years, after my sister set her house on fire…” he answered, intensely staring at the floor.

 

_They never found the body. That means he could’ve lived…. both of them could’ve lived._

“Your brother isn’t named Nikolai Arlovskav, right? Because that’s who all of the DNA I’ve found in this notebook’s blood and most of the hair matches to….” she asked. Instantly, his head snapped to attention and he started at her like she had suddenly fired a gun into the air.

 

_Is it bad that I kind of like him doing that? It makes me feel like I’m no longer Amelia’s shadow._

“....you’ve been alive this whole time…. why didn’t I know?! Why did I have to find out he survived the fire right after he died?! Is my sister alive too?!” he exclaimed.

 

“If her name’s Anastasia Braginskaya, then yes, she’s most likely alive, for her DNA was found on the victim’s body….” she answered as she adjusted one of her gloves.

 

_And considering that those were the only people who got results for either DNA or fingerprints, it’s incredibly likely that she’s the killer._

_I probably shouldn’t tell him that…. he’s already had enough shock for a single day._

“....has she gotten better?” he asked, his face turning pale.

 

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned about her, when your brother appears to have been planning arson in his journal and most likely set off the fire you thought your siblings died in.” she blurted out before placing the book on the table and opening it to a random page.

 

_Why did I say that? Just to deflect attention off of his sister being a murderer?!_

* * *

 

_Why is there a box on my desk? This can’t be the killer’s attempt at killing us all with a motion-triggered bomb…._

_If there is a bomb in here, how much damage could it cause? Would it only blow up this room, or would the rest of the building be destroyed as well?_

_They’ve gradually been getting more direct. The first crime was just in the vicinity of this area, the second one was to target just one of us, and their third one will kill us all._

 

_Anneli, I’m-_

“....um, I think my brother and his girlfriend broke into your apartment and found something that might be related to the killer?” Detective Honda asked, pulling him out of his thoughts as she walked into the office with Anneli.

 

_Why do I keep forgetting she exists? I guess it’s because she’s the only detective I was introduced to at work…._

“Why is Anneli with you, and where is this evidence?” he asked.

 

“Forensics is currently interrogating my assistant due to some positive result on a DNA test, and the only conclusions we’ve reached about this killer have been proven true…. also, the evidence is in that shoebox right in front of you.” she answered, gesturing towards the box.

 

_Oh, there’s not a bomb in there? Thank god…. and considering that Julchen is on break and the other two still haven’t come back from their interview, I think we’re finally going to get somewhat closer to catching this criminal…._

_And if Dimitri were the sort of person to kill two people, I don’t think I would’ve befriended him or he would’ve gotten hired. It’s probably a false positive…._

Daniel Hedervary removed the lid from the shoebox, unmasking a stack of photographs and newspaper articles. The first thing he could see was what appeared to be the back of a photograph.

 

_Before this mess began. Nikolai Arlovskav, Anya Braginskaya…. why exactly would I have a photo of his siblings, when my sole knowledge of them is a series of ridiculous stories and their deaths?_

_I don’t think this is from my apartment…._

The rest of the box consisted of more photos, a bunch of articles on arson cases that were never solved, some reports from missing persons, and a photo of three girls.

 

_The people I must save. Victoria Laurinaitis, Rasia Galante…. hey, isn’t that the girl Anais brought up her brother was on his way to meet…._

_Wait, why does she have a missing persons file in this box?_

 

“....ah, do you know why so many of these articles have the words ‘done by my sister’ on them?” Detective Honda asked, passing him one of the articles about arson.

_WHAT?!_

_I think we’ve just opened a dangerous box…. one that posthumously convicts Anya Braginskaya._

_Yet what’s the connection with the murders?_

“These aren’t articles from our apartment, but from my assistant’s, presumably?” Anneli answered, taking his hand.

 

Daniel Hedervary was about to ask why she knew that when Julchen Beilschmidt sprinted into his office, grabbed his other hand, and dragged both him and Anneli into a police car before speeding away like a madwoman.

 

“What the hell are you doing?!” he exclaimed.

 

“My sister’s trailing the killer, who’s kidnapped their witnesses! We need to find her!” Julchen screamed, as the car made its way down the road like a bullet.

_Tell me that the killer’s not Dimitri’s sister…. and that said witness isn’t Rasia Galante. Someone call Sakura…._

* * *

 

Dimitri Chernenko was in the middle of reading his brother’s notepad when the intercom went off.

 

_I am like her. I can’t let anyone else be hurt. I have to end this, but leave evidence of her crimes…. that’s why you did it?! You set the entire house on fire just to kill the two of you?!_

_No, it was because he wanted everything related to Anya to burn along with it. Or maybe because he thought she should be subjected to the same fate as the families of the people she kidnapped…. I don’t know why, exactly, for this entire notepad is a fragmented, bloodstained mess…._

BEEP!

 

“....um, this is Detective Honda, and I’ve just been informed that we’re chasing the killer, who’s mostly likely armed and has kidnapped a witness….” the loudspeaker said, yanking him out of contemplating arson.

_….it’s Anya, isn’t it? She killed him and Noah Zwingli…. to…. find us._

He wanted to tell the girl interviewing him that he had to join in the chase for his sister, but another announcement cut him off.

 

“...ah, I’ve just been informed that there’s another victim and someone who survived the killer’s attempt on their life….” the detective said.

_Who is it? Has she found them? Who’s left that’s connected to them…. it’s either Daniel or the girl Victoria lives with._

_In other words, one of those two is most likely dead, and the other is wounded…. I failed to stop her back then, but I can do so now._

“Thank you for informing me of my brother’s life and death…. but I have to leave now.” he said as the loudspeaker started yelling about heroism.

 

“....why?” his interviewer asked, extracting the notepad from his hands.

 

“Because my sister’s the killer and I have to stop her from killing more people.” he answered as he sprinted out the door, hoping to find a way to reach her.


	4. Overture

Anais Zwingli didn’t hear the loudspeaker go off about the kidnapping of a witness, for she was collapsed in a closet near the morgue.

_What was the last thing I said to my brother? That I’d be home from work soon and for him to not do anything stupid?!_

_Why did I have to admonish him with my last words? If I knew that they’d be the last thing I’d ever say to him…._

_I’m a mess. I should be running more wound analysis on him, not acting like an overemotional idiot. For all I know, we could’ve caught the killer by now, if I’d just-_

“....it is human to grieve, Anais.” Coroner Nguyen said as he opened the door and found her lying in a pile of boxes.

 

“There’s a killer on the loose in Hearth, and I’m selfishly sobbing in a closet.” she countered, as he grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet.

 

“....do you want to go home, Anais? You can go home, if you’ll feel better….” he asked as the pair of them walked out of the closet and through the hallway.

 

“No, I have to be here. I can’t risk more people dying because I failed to protect them….” she answered, tightening her grip on his hand.

_If I was with Noah and carrying my gun, I would’ve been able to protect him. If I was investigating his wounds, I would’ve been able to determine more about the killer’s choice in weaponry…. instead, I’m-_

“Anais, you did not kill your brother. Do not blame yourself for things you cannot control.” he said, leading her up the stairs and into the atrium.

 

“I’m still an accomplice to his murder, though….” she answered. Outside the door, there appeared to be a rash of people rushing into police cars….

 

_What’re they doing? Have they found someone?_

“Unless you were conspiring with the killer to murder him, you are not, Anais….” he said, as a tall blond man ran past them.

_I feel like I’ve seen him before, but…. we probably just hired him. I think._

Coroner Nguyen was talking with the man about why everyone was getting into the cars, and he was told that the killer had kidnapped three of their witnesses and was most likely driving towards a house that burned down five years ago to murder them.

_I told them to interview my brother’s girlfriend…. and she’s most likely one of the kidnapped people._

_If I caused her kidnapping, I have to save her._

 

“....Anais, why are you going on this mad-dash?” Coroner Nguyen asked as she began to follow the man out the door.

 

“Because I don’t want to be responsible for another death.” she answered, releasing his hand and sprinting out the door before shoving herself into a car.

_Anais Zwingli had failed to save her brother, but she wasn’t going to fail his friend._

* * *

 

For once in her life, Feliciana Vargas’ crazy driving skills were actually useful. After getting Evelin Von Bock’s testimony, she’d felt a mixture of horror and elation.

_If I ever see this woman, I am going to murder her. Who the fuck does something like that to children?! At least we have our killer…._

She and Monika were about to leave for the office with Evelin and Rasia in tow when they heard something drop in a nearby room.

_The killer can’t have been hiding here the whole time, right?_

Monika’d wanted to just go back to the station and track Anya Braginskaya from there, but she’d insisted that they catch her as soon as possible.

 

Unfortunately, what they thought was the killer’s blunder was one of their own, for no one was in both of the apartments they’d searched. By the time they got back to Victoria’s bedroom, she and her sisters had vanished….

 

_Why did we do that?! Now all three of them are going to die, Anya’s in the middle of nowhere, and…. hey, who’s that tall blonde lady in a gasmask…._

Both she and Monika had noticed the masked woman loading her car with bags right outside their window, and said bags _were_ approximately the right size and shape to be holding three people in them.

_Please let this be her…._

 

The pair of them sprinted out of the apartment and towards the police car in unison, both her and Monika hoping that this woman was Anya Braginskaya and not some random creepy gasmask lady….

_Thankfully, she has no idea that we’re following her, so she’s not going to drive in a manner that’ll throw us off…. I hope she doesn’t know that there’re at least two police cars that’re tailing her._

Monika was feeding her sister directions to their location as Anya’s car came to a stop at a red light. Feliciana Vargas slammed the brakes on their car, pulling it to a stop as she almost slammed into the trunk.

_We’re going to save you. Don’t worry…._

 

* * *

 

Julchen Beilschmidt was on her way back from break when her sister called her and told her about the kidnapped witnesses, and how she needed as many people tailing their suspect as possible.

 

This caused to her to sprint back to the office and drag the first people she saw into a police car before she sped off, hoping that her sister’s directions were accurate.

 

“....we’re currently at the stoplight between Halle and Aachen. You know how to get there, right?” her sister asked, as the people in the backseat discussed their suspect’s crimes.

_Of course, dearest sister. Do you underestimate the awesome me? Even when dealing with a…. kidnapper turned arsonist turned murderer, I won’t let you down._

She sped through the streets and intersections of Hearth like a madwoman, hoping to catch up with her sister and find the car that currently contained multiple bodies in it…

 

_Everyone, get out of the way! Yes, I’m speeding through every single stop sign and red light, but this is your police force chasing a dangerous criminal here!_

_The second I meet that woman, I’m going to kill her…._

“....Julchen, I don’t know if you’ve been informed of this, but there’s a third car tailing this suspect.” Daniel said, before he began to relay directions towards whomever had suddenly decided to join them.

 

“Could you just tell them to go back and that we’re enough backup?” she asked as she continued to drive towards their target….

 

“We’re chasing someone who’s killed two people, going to kill three more, burned down multiple houses, and kidnapped at least three people. I think it’d be best for more people to show up, for we’ll have a higher chance of apprehending her….” Detective Edelstein answered.

 

_Okay, fine. I just…. great, I wanted to play some awesome heroine again. Yay._

The car fell completely silent as she continued navigating her way through Hearth, with its only audible sounds being her sister and Daniel relaying directions.

_We’re going to catch this killer. Don’t worry, we will get her._

* * *

 

“....turn left at the stop sign by Linnea Way, and keep driving until you reach Kivian Road.”

 

Sakura Honda was about to start following Detective Hedervary’s directions, when the stoplight in front of her turned red.

 

_So, something good did come out of my brother and Helena’s actions, even if this suspect is even more dangerous that we thought._

_Judging from what the people in the backseat are saying about her, she’s a child kidnapper and abuser who killed her brother and appears to be crazy enough to attack people just because she thinks they’ve betrayed her…._

“Sakura, why aren’t you moving?” forensic scientist Fitzgerald-Jones asked, looking at her like she’d grown a second head.

 

“Because the light’s red.” she answered, patiently waiting for it to turn green.

 

“And we’re chasing our prime suspect, who is a murderous psychopath. I think the lights are a secondary concern to making sure the people she kidnapped aren’t going to die, Sakura.” Miss Fitzgerald-Jones quipped, as the light remained red.

 

“I’m not interested in breaking any laws.” she said in return. “Besides, there’re two other cars chasing this suspect.”

 

“This is an…. oh, I’m not going to convince you out of this, am I?” Miss Fitzgerald-Jones asked, before extracting herself from her seat and slamming her foot on the gas pedal, causing the car to speed away from the stoplight at the speed of a bullet.

 

Sakura Honda was able to safely place herself in the passenger seat as Miss Fitzgerald-Jones grabbed the steering wheel, narrowly preventing the car from running into a tree.

 

* * *

 

Amelia Fitzgerald Jones was vaguely aware of the directions everyone else in the car was yelling at her, but they didn’t matter to her at all.

_How much time did we lose with that stupid red light?! The less time it takes for me to get there, the easier it is for us to save everyone._

_I’m the heroine, remember? It’s my duty to save people._

She sped by miles of houses and trees and cars, desperately hoping that she was somewhere within the right area of the car they were tailing and that the directions being yelled at her were accurate….

 

_Remember, every second you waste is a second those people in the car get closer to dying. You don’t want to be a murderer, Amelia, don’t you?_

Images of corpses ran through her head as she kept navigating the car through roads and towns at its fastest possible speed. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see an incredibly flat house with a black car parked in the driveway.

 

“STOP!” someone screamed, as she slammed the brakes and the horn at the exact same time.

_This is the right place? How did I get here before everyone else did?_

“....I knew she’d be here…. this is my old house, or at least what’s left of it after it burned down five years ago….” a tall blond man said as he exited the back of the car with a woman holding a gun.

_I am very sorry for suspecting you through Maddie’s mtDNA results. I can’t imagine having to arrest her…._

“Why is this part still intact if the rest of it all went up in flames?” she blurted out.

 

“....well, her basement is completely fireproof. Let’s go.” he answered, as another police car pulled into the driveway and her veins turned to ice.

_We aren’t going to walk in on her burning people, are we?_

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Anya Braginskaya was finally happy for the first time in five years. It’d taken her over a year to properly find her girls again, but despite all of the betrayals and obstacles thrown in her path, she’d finally reclaimed them.

 

Unfortunately, they’d all betrayed her, just like her brothers had done.

_Why must everyone I love leave me in the end? I’ve punished those who stole them from me, but that’s not enough…._

_One way or another, I will not be alone again. No matter what I do, I will remain surrounded by people who love me._

She began to smile as she sharpened her knife, completely oblivious to the trio of police cars in her driveway.

 

* * *

 

Evelin Von Bock opened her eyes to a blurring room and a woman holding a knife to her throat.

_….why can’t I see anything else…. how did I get back here…._

“Why did you betray me?” the woman asked, pressing the blade closer to her artery and tightening her grip on her body.

 

_What do you want me to answer, Anya? I’ll say anything you like if you’ll kill me and no one else._

“I said, why did you betray me?! Answer me!” the woman screamed, shoving the knife’s tip against her carotid artery, almost drawing blood….

 

_No, I will not give you the satisfaction of answering. I am no longer the girl you once knew._

“Why won’t you tell me anything? I used to love you, and this is how you repay me?!” the woman yelled, tightening her grip on her and pulling her into a suffocating embrace, her hands brushing the bottom of her-

 

_What are you doing to me?! What exactly do you wish to use me for…. just…. find some way to get yourself out of this, or at least just get her to kill you and make her forget about everyone else._

 

“Why did you kill your brother?!” she exclaimed.

 

“....oh, you know about that? He’d betrayed me, so he had to be punished….” Anya responded, releasing her grip on Evelin’s body as she fell to the floor….

 

“Do you have such a faulty understanding of how people work or are you just so caught up in this farce of a life that you’ve blinded yourself to the truth?!” she exclaimed, as a shovel fell against her head.

_I’ve always wanted to say that to her…. so it doesn’t matter what she does to me, as long as she forgets about the others…._

“....you liar…. I thought he loved me, but he was going to kill me….” Anya responded, the shovel falling against her head a second time….

 

“Really? Unless I do have permanent blunt force brain trauma from everything you’ve done to me, I distinctly recall you telling him to never go into your basement even if the house was on fire and actually threatening to kill him once he found out exactly why you were doing. Did you plan to kill him, when you set the house on fire all those years ago? If anyone’s the betrayer in this scenario, it’s you….” she rambled, attempting to ignore the pain from the shovel’s impact and her blood streaming over her face…

_Channel everything into words. Just keep telling her the truth, and it’ll all work out…._

“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME ABOUT THAT DAY! I FORGAVE HIM FOR THAT!” Anya exploded, slamming her against the wall as everything turned black around her….

 

“....what did he do wrong, then? Save the lives of those people you kidnapped?” she asked.

 

_…no, don’t say anything else, just let her continue murdering you and forget about everyone else in the room…._

_I feel so light…. oh, don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’m here…._

 

* * *

 

_Yet again, your life is an endless succession of failures. How many people have you killed?_

Victoria Laurinaitis awoke to corpses and a woman she hoped to never see again undoing her bandages.

_Where are my clothes? What has she done to the others?_

“I’ve missed you…. I’ve waited so long to see you again….” the woman said, as she continued to remove the bandages covering her wounds….

_Regardless if you live or die, it doesn’t quite matter in the grand scheme of things, as they’re still dead._

“....why didn’t you come back…. listen, it’s okay. I forgive you. I love you….” the woman continued, beginning to embrace her body and pick her up….

 

_You told me that after you killed Felicia. Then you decided to stab me after I refused. And regardless of what I do, I’m going to die in the next five minutes…._

_Why don’t you just-_

 

BANG!

 

“Why did you let them find us?! You set this whole thing up, didn’t you?!” the woman exclaimed, dropping her onto the floor and slamming a bloodstained shovel against her head as someone kept slamming something against the door.

 

_We’re in here! Please, get here before she can cover this all up…._

“I loved you! I thought you would never betray me, Victoria, but I have no choice to kill you….” the woman said, pulling a knife out of her sleeve and slamming it into her back….

 

_Don’t call me that! You just wanted a doll, not a human being with an actual personality…. so, you decided to start abusing me and indoctrinating me…. but I didn’t fall, so you kidnapped the others and set your house on fire when too many people found out about us…._

The knife was brushing against her face, the tip of its blade slicing into her cheek and near her eye….

 

_I can live with impaired vision. Compared to everything else I’ve lost, it’s nothing…. and besides, I deserve it for failing to save people._

The door fell to the floor as the knife was shoved into her right eye, causing rivers of blood to stream down her face….

 

* * *

 

“Anastasia Ivanova Braginskaya, you are under arrest for five counts of murder, one count of attempted murder-”

 

“YOU CAUSED MY GIRLS TO LEAVE ME! YOU STOLE EVERYONE I LOVED FROM ME!”

 

_Have I been dreaming for all those years? Did I create an entire fantasy world where the house burned down and we all escaped?_

Rasia Galante was vaguely aware of a woman standing over her with a knife and a large group of people standing in a doorway, but the group of people didn’t exist, she was only hallucinating them….

_People say that when you’re dying, you see your life flash by your eyes, but I don’t know that many people…._

“Anya, I don’t want to tell you this, but you’re the reason behind why they all left you.”

The knife slammed into her body again, as the woman began to carve some sort of design on her skin….

_All she’s doing is writing the truth about you, Rasia. It’s written in a place where everyone can see it._

“SAY ANOTHER WORD, BROTHER, AND I’LL KILL YOU!”

 

“Anyways, you’re still going to be arrested for multiple counts of murder, so if you want another life sentence tacked onto the five you’re already going to serve, go ahead.” an unfamiliar voice quipped, as a blonde woman grabbed Anya’s hand and yanked the knife out of her body….

 

_Who are you?! Why are you saving me, when I’m worthless…._

More people were making their way into the room, and they all looked like complete strangers….

 

_They’re not real. You created an entire world just to escape from Anya, and you’ve succeeded for five years, but it all fell apart when she killed your sisters…._

_Wait, that’s not right. The police were here this morning to interview me, and Evelin was with me…._

BANG!

 

“I will not let you hurt another child, Anastasia Ivanova.” someone said as she lowered her gun and Anya fell to the floor, grasping her shoulder….

 

_Why does she look familiar?_

“....are you alright?! We’re going to get you all out of here, don’t worry….” the woman with the gun said, as everything turned to white around her.

 

 


	5. Requiem

Anastasia Ivanova Braginskaya was charged with three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

 

Due to the testimony of her brother, her lawyer was able to successfully plead insanity and get her sent to a mental hospital for the rest of her life.

 

* * *

 

After the Hearth police department escorted the ambulances carrying Victoria, Evelin, and Rasia to the hospital, they all went back to the station.

 

Who knew that this much could happen in so little time?

 

Somehow, someone got onto the loudspeaker and was able to convince the entire department to throw a party so they could celebrate the completion of this case.

 

This led towards the entire police department becoming cognizant of Madeline Williams.

 

* * *

 

Evelin Von Bock was officially released from the hospital a week later, due to worries over mental stability and brain damage. She wouldn’t leave until both of her sisters were discharged, as she didn’t want to spend time alone while they were in recovery.

 

She also discovered that Dimitri Chernenko had not been killed by his sister, and a rather happy reunion occurred.

 

Victoria Laurinaitis was released a week later, and proceeded to put her apartment up for sale. It was almost immediately purchased by Anais Zwingli, who moved in a few days later.

 

“I wanted to watch over Rasia.” was all she said when asked why she bought it.

 

* * *

 

A month after everything got back to normal, a month after all of the funerals were held and the loose ends tied up, Daniel Hedervary and Annaliese Edelstein finally got married.

 

It was a very small wedding without much of a reception, but they both declared that the official reception had been held a month earlier during the party thrown for the termination of the case.

 

* * *

 

Three years later, Anais Zwingli got married. The entirety of the Hearth police department involved in the case showed up, along with several of the groom’s relatives.

 

Among the people at the wedding were Xiaochun Wong and Helena Kirkland, who had broken up after the the case terminated but still remained friends.

 

A few people at the wedding swore that they saw a younger, boyish-looking Anais sitting in one of the chairs in the back, but most people dismissed that as nonsense.

 

* * *

 

About a year after the wedding, Anais Nguyen discovered that she was pregnant.

 

“...do you have any ideas for names, Anais?” her husband asked.

 

“If it’s a boy, I want to name him after my brother.” she answered, grabbing his hand.


End file.
